Numerical and experimental investigations of micromixing performance and efficiency in a pore-array intensified tube-in-tube microchannel reactor

Abstract

A new kind of pore-array intensified tube-in-tube microchannel reactor (PA-TMCR) was constructed and studied to achieve intensive micromixing performance as well as high throughput but low pressure drop. The Villermaux–Dushman reaction was employed to investigate the micromixing performance with different geometric structures and flow conditions. A Finite-rate/Modified eddy dissipation model (FR/MEDM) was improved with a correlated mixing rate A at the range of Re = 485–5308 to build the mixing model. Both results indicated that the pore size and annular size played a significant role in enhancing the micromixing level, and the design of PA-TMCR should avoid the overlap of flow fields from the adjacent pores and too much pressure-drop in the annular. The micromixing time was estimated with incorporation model and a new energy efficiency was proposed to estimate the lower limit of the reactor efficiency, which would have promising applications to provide guidance on the design of the reactor for the single phase reaction process. The optimal micromixing time could reach 10−4 s in PA-TMCR. The comparison with other reactors shows that the PA-TMCR is an efficient and high throughput reactor to meet the industrial applications with excellent micromixing performance and energy efficiency.